


MAG XXX - Tomorrows

by soupgoblin



Series: Fake Statements [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), The Extinction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:01:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24429910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupgoblin/pseuds/soupgoblin
Summary: Case #0092505 Statement of Adelard Dekker, taken from a letter to Gertrude Robinson, dated 25th of May, 2009. Audio recording by Martin Blackwood, assistant to Peter Lukas.
Series: Fake Statements [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885207
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	MAG XXX - Tomorrows

**Author's Note:**

> cw for apocalyptic themes - nothing to do with the pandemic but still, I get if you're not in the mood for that sort of story
> 
> a season 4 era Dekker extinction statement! It's probably a little stream of consciousness-y for a Dekker and it also ended up a little more nihilistic angsty than I was angling for, but that's just me being pedantic, its still fun so enjoy!

[INT. MAGNUS INSTITUTE, ????]

[TAPE CLICKS ON.]

[A PEN SCRATCHES.]

MARTIN

Hm? Oh, hello.

[THE SOUND OF WRITING CONTINUES.]

I don’t know what you’re looking for but there’s nothing – (pause as he remembers) Oh! Oh, yes, right, Peter dropped off another statement earlier. Hungry, are you?

[HE CHUCKLES TO HIMSELF. THERE IS A VERY SLGHT BUZZ OF STATIC.]

Sorry, sorry. Alright, you want the statement?

[PAPER RUSTLES.]

Ah, here it is. Ok, let’s see… Martin Blackwood, assistant to Peter Lukas, Head of the Magnus Institute, recording statement number 0092505. Statement of Adelard Dekker, taken from a letter to Gertrude Robinson, dated 25th of May, 2009. Statement begins.

MARTIN (STATEMENT)

Gertrude. I believe I have found another manifestation of the Extinction, and this one leaves little room for doubt. I know you have been dubious about my theories in the past but if you can think of another explanation for a manifestation like this one, I would be happy to hear it, because with the increasing evidence I am beginning to grow concerned that the Extinction’s birth might be closer than we previously anticipated. Still, I shall recount to you the statement I was given, and you can give your own opinion on the matter. I value fewer people’s inputs more highly as I know how well you know the powers, and I’m sure you of all people will be able to recognise whether this truly is a new emergence, or merely an unusual manifestation of the Slaughter or perhaps the Forsaken. Given the blatant themes I find that unlikely, but, regardless, I will get to my tale.

I’m still in America and visited Kansas State University while passing through the area to look into some things. While there I was approached by a student named Wilhelm Mazan who was in his final year studying economics. He had apparently heard about the sort of research I conducted and came to talk to me about an experience he had had. The first relevant thing to know was Sam – Sam was one of Wilhelm’s closest friends, a fellow student studying animation. They had begun dating a few weeks before the events of this statement. Wilhelm’s final exam was on the 1st of June and he said it went surprisingly well. He lived in an apartment with two roommates, but they had both finished their courses already and left to visit family, so for the time being he was living on his own. He was planning to sleep late and relax all the next day to unwind from weeks of cramming, and then go out with his friends to celebrate the day after. When on June 2nd he awoke to a beeping alert before the sun had even risen he assumed his friends must be awake early and bothering him, and he went back to sleep without checking his phone. He said he thought it must have been about half an hour before the alert started going off again, and he begrudgingly picked up his phone, if just to silence it. The alert was not a text. In bold letters on his screen flashed the words:

GOVERNMENT ALERT: IT IS TOO LATE TO STOP IT. MAKE PEACE WITH WHAT GODS YOU HAVE, FOR THIS IS HUMANITIES LAST DAY. GOODLUCK, AND GOODBYE.

A terrifying message, and one far too ridiculous to be real. His first thought was that his friends were pulling a prank on him, a joke at his expense as one of the first ones to finish school – something which I must remind myself he had no reason not to think. Still, as much as he rationalised it there was a slight pit of fear in his stomach at the idea of such a disturbing message. This had properly woken him up, so he gave up on sleeping in. He distinctly remembered not opening his curtains before traipsing sleepily into his empty kitchen. He turned on the tv while making breakfast, the words droning like static in the background, and almost forgot about the creepy alert. The day continued as normal until he finished washing up and as he turned he caught a glimpse of the TV screen out of the corner of his eye. The news was playing. He had not turned on a news channel. Curiosity piqued, he sat down on the sofa to watch the news story playing out in front of him. I once more find myself envious of your gifts, Gertrude, because the things he saw on that screen apparently defied his description. He could say only that they were so horrible he could not conceive of a world in which life would be able to go on after what happened in those videos. He refused point blank to tell me what it was he actually saw, but when I pressed further I managed to get some other details – he told me the same news story was playing on repeat, on every channel available – not that he would have been able to tear his eyes away, even if there was anything else to see – and the news reporter, sitting safely in her pristine office, did explain the situation in slightly clearer terms: the bombs’ paths had been set and there was no way to turn them around and no possibility anything would survive them. He did not know who sent the bombs or why, and at that point it didn’t really matter, because it was absolutely, 100% certain that no living thing would remain by the time the sun rose the next day. He also told me the words the reporter spoke every time the story ended and before it began playing again from the beginning. “There will be no updates to this story. There will be no more stories. There will be no more tomorrows. For the final time, thank you and goodnight.”

He was frozen in place with horror as he watched through several cycles of this, just to be sure it wasn’t changing. As unimaginable an event as this was, he had long since abandoned any hope that this might be fake. It wasn’t just because hacking his TV and flooding it with a fake news show was impossible, because it wasn’t. It was because the videos he had seem were beyond the limits of the human imagination. He had watched the end of the world begin and it was a horror no living being could have designed. Still, he dragged himself to the covered window, heart already heavy with dread for what he would see, for the day was high, and yet now he knew what he was looking for there was an unmissable lack of sunlight streaming through the cracks in the curtains. Though morning was well underway, as he drew back the curtains the light in the dim apartment did not change. The sky was ashen and heavy with dread, curling and boiling like a wave about to break, and the streets below were empty bar an awful, wailing wind that sounded like a distant, head-splitting scream. I pressed him on this empty world, because although this seemed very explicitly about humanities extinction event, empty worlds do tend towards the Lonely and I wanted to be absolutely sure about what I was hearing. Wilhelm explained that although the city was deserted, it wasn’t that there were no people left. Twitching curtains across the street made him sure of that. It was just that this was not a moment of camaraderie, of shared resistance. It was a panicked isolation. It was as if they all thought they could hide from the awful desolation dawning on them. A futility hung in the air. What could any of them do now that would matter? Time was up. Wilhelm found himself reaching for his phone and dialling Sam without quite realising what he was doing. The tone rang out once, twice, three times, far too loud in the cavernous apartment. No one picked up. He considered texting, but what did a final goodbye matter when soon enough it would be as if they had never spoken at all. Never existed at all. There was no note to leave because there would be nothing left to read it. There was no last grand gesture. There would be no neat ending, no finale. The show was cancelled. All today was was a brief stall in the cogs of the universe, before they ground on and left the world a smudge in the gears. Wilhelm sat down on the sofa and watched the death that awaited him play out again, and again, and again, and again.

He didn’t plan to fall asleep – there would be no tomorrow to wake up in - but he must have dozed off without realising, because he found himself dreaming. His account was already hazy on details and filled with musings, but without the Eye’s influence his recount of the dreams he had in this place were near unintelligible. It seems the exact details hold little bearing on the actual manifestation, but I suppose you can never be too sure and you have been known to notice things I deemed irrelevant, so for posterity I will include what I could make out of Wilhelm’s dreams. He recalls standing in a hazy, golden field, the image of which swum and rippled like water. Across the field stood a small, singular house lit by the pink light of an approaching dawn. Outside it stood Sam, waving for Wilhelm to join him. He was filled suddenly with a warm glow of joy. He couldn’t remember what he had been afraid of - the days were infinite here, and they had oh so long to be _alive._ He began running through the field, towards Sam, but in the fickle manner of dreams the distance to the cottage did not shorten and the crops began to stick to him, sucking him down like he was wading through treacle. The sun rose above the house, silhouetting Sam and the cottage for a second in blinding light, and at the same moment Wilhelm flung himself forwards, desperately to reach them, and the ground gave out as he fell face first into the crops, which were no longer planted in ground but floating above a pitch-black void. He fell down, down, down, the light of dawn growing dimmer, and in the emptiness the rushing sound of wind through wheat grew suddenly and unbearably loud.

He startled awake and found himself lying in his bed. He was immediately flooded with relief. He had, after all, fallen asleep on the sofa. So, if he was waking in his bed, that must have been part of the dream too. Of course, the world wasn’t ending. It was just a nightmare. He went to close his eyes and was all of a sudden aware that no light was coming through the curtains. At the exact same moment, he realised with a pit in his stomach that he could hear an alert on his phone. An awful terror filled him, but nonetheless he picked it up to confirm the inevitable. On the screen in bold letters the message blinked back at him.

GOVERNMENT ALERT: IT IS TOO LATE TO STOP IT. MAKE PEACE WITH WHAT GODS YOU HAVE, FOR THIS IS HUMANITIES LAST DAY. GOODLUCK, AND GOODBYE.

Above it was the date. June 2nd, 2009.

Although he already knew what he would see, he drew the curtains and uncovered the grey street, a storm brewing in the distance, the sky so full of itself it was close to bursting. In the kitchen, he made breakfast with the food he had eaten the day before. On the TV, the news reporter told him with fear in her eyes that there _will be no more tomorrows._ And I suppose it wasn’t a _lie._ It occurred to me and Wilhelm confirmed to him too, that this was not tomorrow. It was still the final day, which meant there still would be no tomorrow. This wasn’t a second chance at a life – the waiting period had just been extended. There was a dreadful change coming and he could feel nothing but the dull, aching dread that comes with something that is inevitable and known, but no less awful for it. All this was was borrowed time, a moment to consider how you had no say in pressing the button and you’ll have no say in feeling it’s wrath either, before choice becomes inconsequential with nothing left to feel it. The future was beginning, and they were not privy to it. He dialled every person in his phone, to no avail. He was glad. He had nothing to say to them. He had nothing to say at all. “There will be no updates to this story,” says the woman on TV, and the clouds roll in. “There will be no more stories,” she says, and Wilhelm draws the curtains and boxes himself into his borrowed illusion of safety. “There will be no more tomorrows,” and Wilhelm is dreaming again, of a golden field lit with hope and a house he cannot reach. He wakes up to an alert on his phone. “Thank you and goodnight.”

I don’t need to go on – we both know how time loops work. Wilhelm never made any change to his actions. He described it as like clinging to the edge of a cliff – if he so much as adjusted his grip the rock would crumble and he would fall. So, he held his breath and did not move as his fingers began to slip. It doesn’t matter how well you know there is no way you’ll ever climb back onto that cliff, even if every day all you can do is hang there - when falling means a void so deep you’ll forget the cliff ever existed, you hold on tight and you do not let go.

Time didn’t work right in that place, but needless to say I do not doubt he was trapped there no short amount of time. Days began to blur into an endless, awful flood of uselessness and dread. It was the dream that changed in the end. He found himself asleep once more, standing in the golden field just before dawn, simultaneously a foot and an eternity away from the house where life can go on. Except this time, he knew he was dreaming. He was lucid. He stood there, perception shifting and flowing like he was standing in a mirage, and instead of trying run towards the waving Sam, he began to turn around. His body wasn’t responding properly as is so often the case in dreams, but slowly, slowly he forced himself to turn away from the increasingly frantic Sam. It was like there was something he was battling against. Something that very much wanted him to look away. He didn’t want to see what was there either. He wanted to stare at Sam endlessly and pretend the world would go on forever. He looked anyway. His eyes were filled with tears as he saw the edges of the endless field begin to crumble, and the sky buckled and darkened. There was a storm was rolling in. A storm with footsteps like the beat of a drum and a rumbling like the trumpets at Rapture. And it did not see Wilhelm. It did not see Sam. It did not see their house, singular and lit by the growing dawn. It did not see any of the lives or memories or hopes laid out before it in the golden fields, and it did not care as its rolling, suffocating destruction razed them all in its path. It would swallow the sun before it could ever rise and no one would be left to mourn the world they had doomed with their selfishness. Far away, some trifling, insignificant fools grinned at the shallow victories they had won and turned their backs on the nightmare they had designed in one final act of petty suicide, as if it would stop when it reached them, as if the wave cared who it drowned. This was not a world where exceptions were made. The storm rose and dove, and Wilhelm met its gaze as it swallowed him whole.

A second before the world went dark, an alert went off on his phone and Wilhelm was startled awake. He was lying in bed, eyes full of tears. On the floor, a sliver of sunlight fell from the half-closed window. He grabbed his phone and almost burst into tears – there was no alert. The notification was a text from Sam, asking where he was. The date above it read May 18th 2009\. When he tore open the curtains the sun was high in a cloudless sky and people strolled amiably in the streets below. People were _alive_ and the world was overflowing with possibility and the chance for a tomorrow. Wilhelm fell to his knees.

Since then he told me he had essentially gone back to normal life. He called Sam when he escaped and told him what happened, and while he was empathetic, he was clearly concerned for Wilhelm’s mental health. He didn’t try to tell anyone else after that until he heard of my specific brand of research. He seemed to visibly relax when I assured him I believed him – I assume he was questioning his own sanity a fair amount. More concerning to me, Gertrude, is the dates in this statement. Mr Mazan spoke to me earlier today as I am writing, the 25th. He awoke from the time loop on the 18th, a week ago. However, he had gone about his normal life for what seems to be a week into the future, the events of which time no one else has any recollection of, but he claims had no supernatural incidents up until the 2nd. I know my young friend wasn’t being picky about the intricacies of when he escaped but time reverting rather than linear structure resuming seems odd to say the least. The final exam for economics students is in six days, on the 1st of June, and his scheduled ‘final day for humanity’ is in exactly seven. I am almost certain that there is no way the Extinction could emerge this soon. Almost.

I think this marks the end of my research in America. I will be returning to England shortly. I’ll be visiting the institute when I can – we can discuss this further then. If this visit to the future _was_ a premonition then we must act soon, although on a personal level I think this is probably more of a message than a deadline. Still, if you were planning on following up with Wilhelm Mazan, it may be wise to do so before the 2nd of June. Just to be sure.

See you soon. Adelard.

[HE EXHALES LOUDLY.]

MARTIN

(quietly, to himself) Right. Another Extinction. Of course. (slightly more aggravated) Because if I knew _anything_ other than exactly how painfully we’re all going to die if _I_ fail then –

[THE DOOR OPENS AND PAPER RUSTLES AS MARTIN HASTILY HIDES THE STATEMENT.]

ARCHIVIST

(caught off guard) Oh – Martin you’re – you’re still in –

MARTIN

(overlapping) Jon. You, uh… did you want… something….

ARCHIVIST

Um. Right, I – sorry I thought you weren’t in, I didn’t see you come in today –

MARTIN

Well I haven’t really been leaving the archives all that much lately, so…

ARCHIVIST

Right, right, yes, of course.

[THERE IS A MOMENT OF AWKWARD SILENCE.]

MARTIN

(clearly uncomfortable) So, did you want something?

ARCHIVIST

Oh, right. I was just going to – don’t worry about it, it wasn’t important. (beat) Martin are you doing ok? You look pale –

MARTIN

(overlapping) Don’t, Jon. I – I’m sorry. I think it would be best if you left now.

ARCHIVIST

(sad, but not shocked) Oh. Yes, I’ll be going now. (beat, then softly) Take care of yourself, alright Martin?

[THE DOOR CLICKS SHUT QUIETLY. MARTIN SIGHS AND PETER LUKAS’ STATIC ROARS IN IMMEDIATELY.]

PETER

(very pleased with himself) Well done Martin! You’re finally starting to get it!

MARTIN

(tired) Oh, piss off Peter.

[TAPE CLICKS OFF.]

**Author's Note:**

> yeah Jonny could murder any of the characters I love at any time, but I can make the characters swear as much as I like, so who's REALLY more powerful hmm?


End file.
